SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/1/2016
6:29 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Enemy
Defeated
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Micah 5:5b-6
Message of
the verses: “When the Assyrian invades our land, When he
tramples on our citadels, Then we will raise against him Seven shepherds and
eight leaders of men. 6 They will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword,
The land of Nimrod at its entrances; And He will deliver us from the Assyrian
When he attacks our land And when he tramples our territory.’
We are fast approaching the end of our study in the
book of Micah with only a couple of more chapters to look at when we finish our
study of this fifth chapter. Dr. Wiersbe
entitles his third main section in his second chapter of his commentary on the
book of Micah “Victory: the purging of the nation,” and this will cover rest of
the fifth chapter of Micah. Lord willing
we will finish the fifth chapter in our next SD and then move on to the last
two chapters of the book.
Dr. Wiersbe begins his introductory on this section
with the following words: “As he
continued to view the distant scene, Micah announced that Israel’s future
enemies would be defeated (vv. 5b-6), the Jewish remnant would be blessed (vv.
7-9), and the nation would be purged.” I
want to try and look at the first two sub-points in this SD.
As we look at the nation of Assyria in this section
I want to first of all mention some things about it. When we studied the book of Jonah we saw that
Jonah went to the capital of Assyria and it would be the Assyrians who would conquer
the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC and then would move against the
Southern Kingdom, but would not defeat it as the Lord would use the Babylonians
to do this beginning in 605 BC and ending in August of 586 BC. Assyria is modern day Iran and Babylon is
modern day Iraq, of which both of them are in the news today and Iran is a great
enemy of the nation of Israel so not much has changed since we read about them
in the OT times. We see the word Nimrod
mentioned in verse six which according to John MacArthur is “a reference to
Assyria (cf. Gen 10:11) that could possibly also include Babylon (cf. Gen
10:10) so that may be the reason the Micah uses that term in verse six. MacArthur also writes the following about the
words seven and eight found in the last part of verse five: “An idiom for a full and sufficient number of
leaders, more than enough for the task (cf. Ecc. 11:2).”
Dr. Wiersbe writes “The Assyrian” “named in verse 5
isn’t the Assyrian army of Micah’s day, for the Jews in that day certainly didn’t
defeat Assyria and rule over her land.
The Assyrians soundly defeated Israel, and the land of Israel was
ruined. ‘The Assyrian’ is another way of
saying ‘the enemy,’ and here it refers to Israel’s enemies in the last days
when all nations will gather against her (Zech. 10:10-11; 12:9; 14:1-3).” Now this makes much more sense to me.
He goes on to write “When the enemy attacks in the
last days, God will raise up leaders to face the enemy, just as He had raised
up the judges and heroes like David. But
Micah makes it clear that God is the Deliverer who will enable Israel to defeat
her enemies and rule over their lands. The
‘he’ of Micah 5:6 is the ‘ruler’ of verse 2.”
As stated above we know what the Assyrians did shortly after Micah’s
day, but as Dr. Wiersbe states this prophecy is end time related and the end
times is made clear in chapters 6-19 of the book of Revelation, a book that I
worked on most of last year and is posted on my blog to see.
“The remnant blessed” Micah 5:7-9: “7 Then the remnant of Jacob Will be among
many peoples Like dew from the LORD, Like showers on vegetation Which do not
wait for man Or delay for the sons of men. 8
The remnant of Jacob Will be among the nations, Among many peoples Like
a lion among the beasts of the forest, Like a young lion among flocks of sheep,
Which, if he passes through, Tramples down and tears, And there is none to
rescue. 9 Your hand will be lifted up against your adversaries, And all your
enemies will be cut off.”
Let us first of all look at what John MacArthur
writes in his study Bible on verses 7-9:
“Israel’s presence in the midst of many peoples would be to some a
source of blessing (cf. Zec. 8:22,23); to others, she would be like a lion—a source
of fear and destruction (cf. Isa. 11:14; Zec. 12:2, 3, 6; 14:14).”
When we looked at chapters 6-19 of Revelation we saw
described in many of those chapters things that the Lord will be doing for
Israel in the last days. Many believe
that God is done with Israel, but the Bible makes it clear that He is not done
with Israel, and in those last seven years of what the Bible calls the
Tribulation period God will care for Israel and will bring out a remnant who
will go into what is known as the Millennial Kingdom where Christ will rule for
1000 years on planet earth as promised to the nation of Israel. Jesus Christ first came to care for the sin
problem that all men have and then He will return as the conquering King of
Israel to reign from Jerusalem as described in many OT passages. Israel will gather strength from the Lord
like a lion’s strength and will be refreshing like dew from heaven as God
allows them to bring refreshment to the world.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon Coming down upon the
mountains of Zion; For there the LORD commanded the blessing-life forever
(Psalm 133:3).”
1/1/2016 7:06 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment